photo credit: Justin Chotikul
“A very great vision is needed, and [whoever] has it must follow it as the eagle seeks the deepest blue of the sky.” Tȟašúŋke Witkó , (Crazy Horse—a legendary Lakota figure of resistance.)
Today, in the heart of the Lakota nation, amid the undulating high plains and boundless azure heavens, the sun sets on a small, hardluck town harnessing the future to honor its tribal past.
photo credit: Justin Chotikul
Eagle Butte, SD is one of the biggest towns in the fourth largest reservation in the United States—an area equivalent to the state of Connecticut—and the headquarters of the Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe. It straddles Dewey and Ziebach counties, which are both consistently ranked among the country’s poorest. Over the past three years, its undergone a visual transformation, with a Main Street dominated by the bold colors of the Lakota people.
photo credit: Justin Chotikul
A dozen beautiful murals span a mile. Some depicting traditional narratives, others underscoring Lakota values like generosity, kinship, fortitude and wisdom. Above, schoolchildren walk past a mural-in-progress by Serval and Estria, two internationally renowned spray-can artists who hail from Sweden and Hawaii, respectively. The stylized graffiti lettering on the right uses a tribal color spectrum and spells out Wičháȟpi Oyate: The People of the Stars.
photo credit: Justin Chotikul
Graffiti jams are essentially community-wide festivals showcasing the talents of the artistic movement’s rising stars and elders. But in Eagle Butte, these jams serve a purpose other than an individual artist’s media-exposure: community uplift. “RedCan Rising” is focused, foremost, on elevating and inspiring a long-suffering indigenous community.
photo credit: Justin Chotikul
Above, Serval puts the finishing touches on this scene of a golden eagle and bullsnake, two animals prevalent to the vast ecosystem of the Dakota prairies, and each the symbolic muse for countless Lakota stories. Serval himself witnessed this animal encounter, and he was inspired to release this print in support of the “No Dakota Access Pipeline (DAPL)” movement taking place in the neighboring Standing Rock reservation.
photo credit: Justin Chotikul
After raising a generation of Cheyenne youth through its educational-programming, its vital place in the community is finally being fully recognized. Over the past decade the CYRP has been the recipient of arts-based grants from the “Our Town” program of the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) as well as the Local Initiatives Support Corporation (LISC)—and, of course, ArtPlace.
photo credit: Justin Chotikul
“Life in Eagle Butte IS art, and that will remain all year round,” says Julie Garreau, the founder and executive director of the CYRP. The Lakota, as any one with eyes can attest, possess an eye-poppingly creative culture. To behold the intricate beadwork of their traditional regalia is to experience a visual aesthetic that has been improved and refined over centuries. Garreau and the CYRP strengthen and add to that legacy, both through regular events where youth honor their forebears in ancestral garb and dance—and innovations which tap into modern mediums, like graffiti.
photo credit: Justin Chotikul
Julie Garreau is widely acknowledged as the driving dynamo behind CYRP’s upward trajectory. She volunteered for the organization for its first 12 years, overseeing classrooms that were always at full capacity, given the paucity of education funding for after-school programming. All the while she incorporated the arts into the curriculum, though it wasn’t until 2014 when she discovered the possible benefits graffiti workshops had in re-engaging youth. Elders were initially skeptical but a year later, CYRP had secured NEA funding for a 3.5 acre community art park, and launched its inaugural RedCan.
photo credit: Justin Chotikul
The elders’ turnaround makes perfect sense, given RedCan’s potential to advance the goals of a 2005 poverty alleviation strategy. This plan, formulated by the Cheyenne River Tribal Council, emphasized a strong Lakota identity as the key to its success. And that emphasis was CYRP’s raison d’etre, since all its youth programs derived from a commitment to preserving cultural values, strengthening families, and promoting learning. What better way to boldly assert a proud Lakota identity than through artwork that’s literally larger-than-life?
photo credit: Justin Chotikul
“I don’t think we can ever love our history,” Garreau says, “but we can embrace it for what it is, then find the power to overcome it.” That history is a hearbreaking account of near-genocide followed by an endless procession of injustice and indignities. The foundational myths of the United States are better understood as ‘settler colonialism’ in Native lands, a long chapter of abrogated treaties and second-class status. Ill-conceived infrastructure projects, like the damming of the Missouri river, forced many of the Lakota onto desolate areas with arid soil and few natural resources. This tragic legacy is apparent on almost any Native reservation, and Cheyenne River is no exception. Community trauma from the days of federally-funded boarding schools lingers to this day, and manifests itself in rates of suicide and substance abuse well above the national norm. Unfortunately, these statistics foster salacious indigent narratives (often characterized as ‘res porn’) that turn Native suffering into spectacle. The cathartic role of art in countering this trend has been well-documented.
photo credit: Justin Chotikul
Herein lies the shrewd strategy of melding graffiti and tribal culture, for this particular medium was itself borne on the margins—quite literally, in the subways beneath and the ghettos within New York City. “The pioneers in the Bronx learned to do anything with almost nothing,” says ‘East’ Foster, pictured above, a graffiti-artist who gravitated to the medium as a youth in the mid-eighties, honing his craft in the alleys and elevated trains of his native Chicago. East, whose reputation and body of work commands considerable admiration amongst his peers, has been involved in RedCan since its inception, and has been an integral factor in corralling other respected artists to the event.
photo credit: Justin Chotikul
As East notes, graffiti emerged in places of urban decay, with artists using brash style and bright colors to demand respect. Tags became a guerrilla challenge to the status quo, an artistic attempt to force the haves to recognize the have-nots.
photo credit: Justin Chotikul
The first RedCan, in 2015, was initially envisioned as a one-off event, but the enthusiasm of the surrounding community, and especially artists like East, convinced Garreau that this had lasting resonance for South Dakota’s own underclass. Crude graffiti tags were already prevalent in much of downtown Eagle Butte—but now those eyesores could be converted into assets.
photo credit: Justin Chotikul
Like the wild-horse-as-phoenix in East’s mural, Lakota identity could be reborn through creative inspiration, this time even stronger. “The government tried to take away what made us Lakota,” Garreau says, but “it’s still here, it’s still present, and our kids experience it.”
More than just experience it, those kids can now create it themselves. For the past three years, RedCan has routinely assembled an all-star squad of street art practitioners to beautify its dilapidated buildings, but CYRP’s vision remains squarely focused on the youth. RedCan is, after all, one of several flagships for the Lakota Youth Arts Institute (LYAI), the ArtPlace-funded program that will deepen and formalize CYRP’s arts-education and incubate local talent.
photo credit: Justin Chotikul
The Waniyetu Wowapi art park, literally in CYRP’s backyard, is a multi-acre space for all of Eagle Butte’s residents, from one-time inspired locals to artists-in-training.
photo credit: Justin Chotikul
‘Scribe’, a Kansas-city based graffiti artist, spends some creative free-time in CYRP’s art-park.
photo credit: Justin Chotikul
The art park also provides a dramatic backdrop for CYRP’s perennial cultural exhibitions, some of which occur in tandem with RedCan’s mural-making activities. The above image is a snapshot of one such event.
photo credit: Justin Chotikul
The art park also provides a dramatic backdrop for CYRP’s perennial cultural exhibitions, some of which occur in tandem with RedCan’s mural-making activities. The above image is a snapshot of one such event.
photo credit: Justin Chotikul
The art park also provides a dramatic backdrop for CYRP’s perennial cultural exhibitions, some of which occur in tandem with RedCan’s mural-making activities. The above image is a snapshot of one such event.
photo credit: Justin Chotikul
Last but not least, the art park also serves as the perfect setting for planned and impromptu celebrations. Pictured here, a local DJ spins an eclectic mix of soul, hip-hop, and funk for RedCan visitors and participants.
photo credit: Justin Chotikul
RedCan is intimate, collaborative, and concerned primarily with the broader community in which it takes place. Its priorities are the assets, identities, and issues of the Lakota people – which makes it more of a creative placemaking ‘pow-wow’ than a run-of-the-mill graffiti-jam. “Pow-wow” is used appropriately in this sense: a word that has been culturally appropriated to describe any informal gathering, it’s properly understood as a sacred occasion full of ceremony and meaning. The symbolic rituals begin even before the event proper, as each day of artist orientation is bookended with a Native drum-circle, complete with chanting and ‘smudging’—a ceremony consisting of burning sage and tobacco offerings—to foster connection and express gratitude.
photo credit: Justin Chotikul
Scribe, a Kansas-city-based artist, participates in an artist discussion on the planned murals and intent of RedCan. This is atypical for graffiti jams, and perhaps one of the key lessons that CYRP’s model can impart for other placemaking organizations. Chan enthusiastically agrees: “I’ve been to a number of street festivals and graffiti jams, and what blew me away about RedCan is how thoughtful and deep their orientation process is for visiting artists, which sets the tone for the whole event.”
photo credit: Justin Chotikul
That orientation is an immersive process that includes conversations with locals, presentations of Lakota culture, and even visits to nearby buffalo ranches. Like most of the artists, Scribe used this knowledge to inform his large-scale mural. Here he is painting a buffalo and turtle—two ‘guardian spirits’ in Lakota culture—in his mural’s early stages.
photo credit: Justin Chotikul
After a solid day’s work, the mural’s initial sketch comes to life, seemingly fully matched to its surroundings. The piece’s subject-matter is allusive of the visual arts—suggesting, in its basic structure, the famed Eastern artist Hokusai’s legendary “Great Wave of Kanagawa”—but also serves as a subtle commentary on current events. Sacred Stone Camp, the ad hoc headquarters for the No DAPL movement, is but a two-hour drive from Eagle Butte. This mural’s subject-matter ties the Lakota guardian spirits to a reverence for the natural world, and that most precious resource: water.
photo credit: Justin Chotikul
This mural’s meaning might be lost on outsiders, but to Natives versed in Lakota folklore, it’s a commemoration of a common tale: “The Great Race”. In this tale, humans negotiated with the buffalo, likened in the tale to an apex predator at the time, for a competition to determine the ‘dominant’ animal. The above tableau captures the moment the magpie, the surrogate competitor for humans, emerged victorious. Ever since, so Lakota lore goes, men have dominated the buffalo and left alone the magpie.
photo credit: Justin Chotikul
Garreau makes no qualms about CYRP’s end-goal: “RedCan is just a way to get [our participating youth] to bring what they’ve learned year-round.” Those learning modules include various youth-mentoring programs, including a local ‘intern’ for each large-scale mural. They also include several workshops which partner with the First People’s Fund, a local group supporting Native artists, and their “Rolling Res” shuttle-bus. Above, East teaches a skateboard-painting class in the shadow of Rolling Res.
photo credit: Justin Chotikul
“Young people gravitate towards art in public [spaces] because it’s what they see,” says Estria, a Hawaiian-born graffiti-legend (and the artist responsible for the enormous eagle mural pictured earlier). “Galleries are dead [and] museums are a thing of the past.” In a career that spans several decades, Estria has worked with native communities throughout the Polynesian islands. Each of his community-projects has been youth-centric, with an emphasis on art’s healing power.
photo credit: Justin Chotikul
Estria likes to have local youth collaborate with him on his large-scale murals, and he takes pains to get the community’s story right before even touching his spray can. Like Garreau, Estria sees art as a way to “leverage enthusiasm to segue into life lessons they need to cope in their struggle. It’s not about the art,” he maintains, “it’s just an excuse to have a positive influence on them.”
photo credit: Justin Chotikul
Estria steps back to take stock of his piece in the art park, a cosmic depiction of Keya, Lakota’s guardian-spirit turtle. Next to this image (and not visible in this framing), he’s written a Hawaiian adage, “ho’oponopono mihi”. This references a ceremony of ‘making things right, just, and balanced’ by forgiving the self and forgiving others. In this manner, he ties Lakota values to the universal values of reverence for the Earth shared by all indigenous peoples.
photo credit: Justin Chotikul
Sustaining success – Lessons for other Placemakers
RedCan has grown dramatically in its brief lifespan, which has required CYRP to be more agile in their iterative planning and strategic goal-setting. They eventually envision a stable of local talent with the skill to paint large-scale pieces of their own. The way forward looks promising, as many burgeoning local artists grow more proficient with each passing year. Rehst, a Rapid-City based Native artist who has attended each RedCan, has relished the opportunity to “learn and paint alongside the greats.”
photo credit: Justin Chotikul
Though RedCan is, in many ways, a singular distillation of Lakota culture, it still provides a host of takeaways for other aspiring creative placemakers.
First of all, planners should experiment with different approaches. Creative placemaking is an evolving field of practice, and the best method for one community may look starkly different in others. Garreau wasn’t 100% sure that graffiti would engage Lakota youth the way it has—and had the tribal elders maintained their objections, she would have had a much steeper climb to success—but her experiences told her to trust her gut. The early results looked especially promising, and RedCan has nearly doubled in size each year. Innovative approaches arise from limitations and lateral thinking.
photo credit: Justin Chotikul
Second, remember that the art (or creative approach) is in service to the mission or desired community outcome. For Garreau and CYRP, that outcome is “changing the game, changing the trajectory of our children’s lives.” If she and her staff didn’t see RedCan lead to the organizations goal of “planting seeds” then they would proceed with the third lesson…
photo credit: Justin Chotikul
…Iterate and adjust: most programs and projects follow a zig-zag path to success, not a straight line. CYRP used an incremental approach where each subsequent event built on the strengths of the last, which helped them become the recipient of three placemaking grants in a five year period. As Chan notes, too many organizations don’t have “the trust and patience to grow over time.” They forget, she continues, that “when embarking on a big community-facing project it’s important to stick to your values, but also make sure you’re able to be flexible in the moment.”
photo credit: Justin Chotikul
Equally important, have a long-term vision. Calculated risks should only be one tool in the toolbox. CYRP works toward its broader strategy through a multi-pronged approach, utilizing its (growing number of) facilities and expansive curriculum—on everything from physical education to sustainable agriculture—with the end goal of empowering youth.
photo credit: Justin Chotikul
If your work is heavily staked on visiting artists, then it’s crucial that you orient outsiders to your community and its culture. As has often been noted, creative placemaking is more than a pretty mural in a commercial district. Placemakers would do well to avoid ‘artwashing’ as a strategy. They ought to replicate CYRP’s process of discovering artists with the right attitude, taking the time to educate them on Lakota identity, and fostering a spirit of ‘tiospaye’—the Lakota notion of ‘extended family and connection’. You thus imbue artists with a sense of shared ownership, and embolden them to rise to the occasion with their best work.
photo credit: Justin Chotikul
Choose strong, reliable partners. CYRP gained the backing of their tribal council, advancing goals in line with the Council’s strategic poverty alleviation plan, and they work closely with the reputable and forward-thinking First People’s Fund. The Fund’s Rolling Res workshops help bring in youth from outside Eagle Butte, and contribute to CYRP’s goal of empowering a new generation of artists. As Estria says, you have to “train the next generation to tell the stories of this place.”
Acknowledge the past, but don’t wallow in fatalism. Creative placemaking projects often arise in the most desperate of circumstances, but they usually succeed when spearheaded by visionary leaders whose hope and optimism outweigh their despair. Garreau views the past as an injunction to do better: “We have the spirits who guide us and make us strong, and that’s what we’re building on. We might be impoverished, but we’re rich in culture.”
photo credit: Justin Chotikul
Finally, recognize the power of art for art’s sake. Creation is a positive, healing force that can have profoundly cathartic benefits, especially in places where intergenerational trauma has prevailed. Garreau would be the first to acknowledge this truth: “We’re remembering where we come from: our roots, our ancestors, even the sad things that happen—the massacres and battle. We’re finding power through art.”
The Cheyenne River Youth Project (CRYP) manages two youth centers on the Cheyenne River Sioux reservation that have underutilized art space as well as a graffiti art park. Classes taught by local and regional Native and non-Native artists include fine art, Lakota art, graffiti art, and media. The Lakota Youth Arts Institute is an investment in the future of the Cheyenne River youth and community by ensuring they have consistent access to the education and training that will deepen and strengthen their connection to Lakota art and culture, the community’s greatest asset. Each year, for the past 4 years they have hosted the amazing RedCan Jam. This ‘Graffiti Jam’ is the proving ground for the latest experiment in creative placemaking, a burgeoning discipline examining how arts and culture can help achieve community outcomes, especially when artists are embedded in the planning process. Our roving reporter Justin Chokitul visited RedCan, hung out with the community and artists and took these amazing photographs.
Learn more about the Cheyenne River Youth Project and RedCan here.
An upcoming version of this story will appear in the next issue of Forecast Public Art’s beautiful glossy magazine Public Art Review.